The tool known as the adze serves for smoothing rough-cut wood in hand woodworking. Generally, the user stands astride a board or log and swings the adze downwards towards their feet, chipping off a piece of wood, and walking backwards as they go, leaving a relatively smooth surface behind. However, in general it can be used for various cutting operations.

The head of the adze is oriented to the haft like a hoe, or plane, and not like an axe, whose cutting blade would be perpendicular to the blade of an adze.

History

Prehistoric Maori adzes from New Zealand, used for wood carving were made from nephrite, also known as jade.

In central Europe, adzes made by knapping flint are known from the late Mesolithic onwards ("Scheibenbeile"). Polished adzes and axes made of ground stone, like amphibolite, basalt or Jadeite are typical for the Neolithic period. Shoe-last adzes or celts, named for their typical shape, are found in the Linearbandkeramic and Rössen cultures of the early Neolithic.

More modern adzes are made from steel with wooden handles , and some people still use them extensively: occasionally those in semi-industrial areas, but particularly 'revivalists' such as those who exist at the Colonial Williamsburg cultural center in Virginia, USA. However, the traditional adze has largely been replaced by the sawmill and the power-planer , at least in industrialized cultures. Adzes are also in current use by artists such as American and Canadian Indian sculptors doing large pole work.

Types

• Carpenter's adze - A heavy adze, often with very steep curves, and a very heavy, blunt poll. The weight of this adze makes it unsuitable for sustained overhead adzing.
  • Railroad adze - A carpenter's adze which had its bit extended in an effort to limit the breaking of handles when shaping railroad ties. Early examples in New England began showing up approximately in the 1940s - 1950s. The initial prototypes clearly showed a weld where the extension was attached.
• Shipwright's adze - A lighter, and more versatile adze than the carpenter's adze. This was designed to be used in a variety of positions, including overhead, as well as in front on waist and chest level.
  • Lipped shipwright's adze - A variation of the shipwright's adze. It features a wider than normal bit, whose outside edges are sharply turned up, so that when gazing directly down the adze, from bit to eye, the cutting edge resembles an extremely wide and often very flat U. This adze was mainly used for shaping cross grain, such as for joining planks.
• There are also a number of specialist adzes once used for barrel stave shaping, chair seat forming and bowl and trough making. Many of these have shorter handles for control and more curve in the head to allow better clearance for shorter cuts.
• Another group of adzes can be differentiated by the handles, the D handled adzes have a handle where the hand can be wrapped around the D, close to the bit. These adzes, follow closely traditional forms in that the bit or tooth is not wrapped around the handle as a head.

Sources

• The section about types of adzes is based on a Metaweb article at [1] under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.